La Cocina

The Big Picture

2009-07-06T09:15:00.005-05:00

The most wonderful feeling in the world to me?

Could it be "the taste sensation when maple syrup *SMAK* collides with ham?"

NAE.

It is the realization that God's plans are much more intricate and grand than I could've ever initially conceived.

Mirrors & Pathways

2009-06-24T08:17:00.007-05:00

A good story -- whether related through film, print, or oral communication -- does more than entertain us; it applies itself to our life, seeping into our encounters and situations and influencing us to reinterpret them. By peering into a fictional world, we might be provided the opportunity to see into obscured compartments within our own reality.

My most treasured stories, the ones I revisit again and again, are full of flawed, three-dimensional characters with more than mere story-driving motivations -- their emotions and reactions are mirrors onto which I may safely project my own actions or that of another in order to gain a deeper understanding of human nature. Why would an abused child grow up to inflict the same wounds that infected their own beginnings? Why would a seemingly solid family man forsake his wife and children? Why would someone prominent in the public eye do things that would beg the world to tear them down and destroy them?

I have tremendous respect for the storytellers who are able to weave beauty and monstrosity into a character's personality. I can see great courage in disallowing the "white knight" of the story to pass through the pages of a tale simply waving Excalibur and confounding every purely evil enemy in his path. I guess that's why I especially love the work of writer/producer/director David Lynch. His characters begin as the paragon of innocence, but their purity is unraveled and their goodness challenged as they are caught up in the storms around them. Kyle McLachlan's characters in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are my favorite because you desperately want the boy scout to succeed at his task without being tainted by his circumstances.

I find myself seeking explainations for seemingly irrational behavior right now because people that I've looked up to have disappointed me. One individual has made not one mistake, but a series of choices that required heaping amounts or deception and greed in order to feed his fantasies. His actions have already come to light -- some know more to the story than others, and rightfully so -- and I am watching the consequences of his choices work their way through the hearts of many, many beloved people.

The other person on my mind has made a precarious series of choices herself, albeit moreso within her heart than in physical action... so far. Her Jekyll/Hyde transformation has caused me to question everything I believed about the value of ambition and the pitfalls of following your heart down a path with no signs or handrails. Risks worth taking DO exist, and sometimes when God commands us to move, it's to a place that's out of our comfort zone so that we will depend upon Him to guide us there. In her case, though, I see no goodness or ultimate fulfillment in what she wants. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if she continues to pursue her desires, they will cave in and destroy all that she has worked for that is worth protecting.

If I could pinpoint the single deficiency that gives root to these terrible flowers of destruction, it would be this: love born not out of strength, but out of weakness and need. It immediately reminds me of Proverbs 9:17,18: “Stolen water is sweet;
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are there,
That her guests are in the depths of Sheol." Her meaning the incarnation of foolishness and indescretion.

By the same token, 1 Corinthians reminds me what true, fulfilling love looks like: it is "patient", it "does not act unbecomingly", and "does not rejoice in unrighteousness". The author of Phillipians wept as he wrote about those "whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." I think he knew what it was to fight through life while growing heavier and heavier under the burden of his own poor, selfish choices. While he could be secure and encouraging in his own salvation, the scars from those past mistakes still function as reminders of our natural tendency to fail without the foundation of Jesus Christ and his teachings. Those who better understand how people fail are better equipped to forgive.

After the initial storm clouds of anger have cleared and I have a choice to make reguarding people like these two, what do I do? Do I fulfill my Christian duty by just praying for them? God, what would you have me do?

99.44%

2009-06-11T09:53:00.013-05:00

Although I still await the official arrival of the midyear solstice, "every sign close to nature" (as Sting eloquently sang) points to madame summertime's arrival. Like trumpeteers before her approaching carriage, a violent summer thunderstorm shook Le Cottage Bleu with its mighty percussion during the hours preceding daylight this morning. In response, I sat straight up and flailed my appendages like a harpooned octopus, startling my poor husband straight out of a rather enjoyable fishing dream -- for this, I feel terribly guilty. He so rarely enjoys dreaming. Nine nights out of ten, he's usually arguing with his mother within his tortured head.

I, on the other hand, enjoy the luxury of experiencing dreams that are mostly pleasurable, if not simply curious.... I often dream of houses, lands, forests, rooms -- spaces to occupy and wear like a sweater jacket, meaning that their character remains, even as I take it on and mold it to my proportions. Many times an object or an idea from a dream will hook me, and suddenly I have the image permenantly affixed within my head and I'm set on a mission to retreive or create the incarnation of the dream-thing. Awainting in the cluttered storage facility of my mind are a hand-carved stone fireplace mantle, an open-air library, a rough-hewn shipwood table, an underground Spanish mission with tiles and candleabras worked into the walls of its catacombs, an old crone's house where vegetables stew and herbs and roots are dried from the pine rafters... this is the stuff of my summer reveries. Fortunately, I need not wander far from home to see them realized.

Our marriage home has become an other-world reflection of these subconscious desires; under the direction of husband-dear -- who inherited from his maternal grandmother's discernment for visual harmony -- he and I have created a living space that have incorporated many of these elements, even without him realizing it! So many of the things we've chosen as a couple to bring into our home point toward his eye for beauty and my preference for whimsy. The little wooden and plaster fat birds peeking from random corners of my kitchen belong to that dream world. So does the recycled church furniture. A library -- open air or not -- is a completely achievable goal, and we're well on our way. Even the pond concealed by a curtain of shaggy adolescent pines has been a visiting-portal for so many of the places I've taken comfort in, even if they only exist in my imagination.

I'm grateful for the fruits of an overactive imagination. I think it's a gift to have such a lens through which to view my life. I know that it pleases the Creator when gifts He has bestowed are developed with the intention of furthering His work, yet many people might not place nightly appearitions within this category, considering it a rather spooky and intangible. But I do. I told one of our "kids" Wednesday night that sometimes I fail to see God's hand in what I've done until I look back upon it and am able to identify his fingerprints all over what I believed was my personal masterpiece. Manipulating one's environment to reflect a heart that rejoices in all that God has given can be a way of "multiplying talents" (Matt. 25:13-30).

"....whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31)

The Swarm

2009-06-03T10:02:00.004-05:00

My anger is a living fire
thinking its own terrible thoughts,
storming inner cities,
a swarm of drunken birds.

But can you smother, in good conscience,
the animation of breath,
even laced with embers?

We are the single priveledged creature
charged to refine the wildness in wayward beings...
how could a furious heart be different?

Fiction & Restriction

2009-05-21T09:46:00.013-05:00

I wish I could remember the common names of those flowers!

Tempermental bursts of warm weather are beckoning me back into the cool wooded hideaways back home....

At the gated ending of an unnamed county road there lives a little old man and a not-so-little old woman. They are the best of friends, the oldest of lovers, and the easiest companions. Each summer, I find myself on their crooked wood plank porch, rapping on their screen door seeking permission to swim in the ice cold spring-fed swimming hole on their property. As I've grown older and less interested in tramping through the woods (or perhaps more fearful of lyme disease), I've begun looking forward to my visit with the ancient land holders even more than my dip in the gorge. Simply being around them as they go through their comfortable petterns of survival captures my imagination, giving birth to buds of story and song characters that threaten to bloom into a complete project....eventually.

Right now, I'm molding the not-so-little old woman into the wilderness "sage" character so essential to quest-related tales; her home, though aging and deteriorating at the same speed as her physical state, is a living, breathing character in and of itself. The chaotic prolificacy of her garden is a manifestation of her lively personality, cultivated and refined through decades of hardscrabble survival. I write her because she is all that I aspire to be -- skilled in ways of trial and observation, practiced in tragically forgotten ways, harded by the elements while somehow remaining boldy feminine.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

And now, I look at my work. My hands. Messy pen and ink would testify I've earned my keep. Even a typewriter requiring a pint of elbow grease to operate might convince me that my current profession provides bread honestly earned. But what am I still doing here, in a chair, before a window, typing on a soft-touch keyboard, awaiting some DeSoto to arrive and declare my secret worlds sacred?

It is not my heart to abandon my life as I know it. What's missing is vocational purpose. Occupational passion. I know that against all guidance counselor conditioning, I will never be a rat-to-cheese, 40-hour-a-week commuter at the core of my being. I crave self-definition in channeled, sweat-bourne expression. The mere thought of having to turn over decades of uninspiring work energy in exchange for the safety net provided by online bill payment and low health care deductibles send me spiraling into a professional depression.....

There is work, then there are responsibilities. The question is, Quigley, how does one persue one without abandoning the other??? There must be a way. Musty must must.

box or bling?

2009-05-18T11:02:00.005-05:00

Have you ever felt that you existed within multiple realities?

I believe that I'm a clear storage box rather than a gemstone. By this, I mean that I see my "self" as containing multiple, complete personalities that surface in turn instead of possessing one personality with many different facets. All "characters" within this box share the same experiences, but they do not all share the same characteristics.

(Ach.... moments like this cause me to realize that I should've continued my college education and developed my belly-button gazing abilities on the clock, so I'd at least have a piece of resume-boosting paper to increase my workplace value!)

Slower, secretly smiling

2009-04-29T13:50:00.005-05:00

In moments most mundane and calm,
I brush palms with our future selves,
older, softer, slower,
smiling secretly to each other.

It confounds my vanity to see them wearing
clothes that are comfortable and forgiving;
habits have crept into their bones
and twisted them into peculiar shapes --
bodyscapes beloved by dimming eyes

The familiar, trustworthy rhythm of
housework and rest
is the comforting heartbeat rocking gently
beneath your nightshirt pressed
below my ear

Our children will make up for fewer mistakes
than we were able to forgive ourselves for,
steady heart

Coffee, water, wine

2009-04-29T10:11:00.006-05:00

Coffee, water, wine --
so my days unfold in this drowsy pattern.
A lift, a drop, a cleansing,
each worthwhile day follows the arc of a tale...
I am grateful for each
unamerican pause in the hours.

Random streetcorners in goodmorning Manhattan
never knew sleep, and neither did I;
I wandered from cup to cup,
closing my hands around it like
the first precious discovery of fire.

Wine stained my hair and fingers
the few times I felt Jewish enough to dance.
Somehow, California made sense.
One day, daughters will catch a glimpse and murmur,
Mother had an adventure,
and you will laugh, my dear, because
we live behind closed doors.

But the water is different;
it flows in and out and through,
making and breaking and wasting.
The one I so frequently neglect,
I need the most.

When I am wandering slowly from this world,
which one of these will you give me?
To choose is to say so much of how you loved...

You have always loved me well.

What's the daffo-dealeo?

2009-04-02T11:04:00.004-05:00

You'd think that with the onset of a warmer, more encouraging season, my brain would emerge alongside the unfurling cotyleadons.... but NAE! Instead, I'm typing things backwards, watering my dogs while letting my plants out to pee, the list of constant embarrassment rolls on into infinity and over the mountain tops.

On the brighter side, the shift in sunshine hours has transformed me from a drowsy lion to a frolicksome lamb (I say, as my emotionally exhausted husband thanks Sweet Jesus)... everywhere I look, there's fresh flowers and new lime green oak leaves and the beautiful and often fuzzy results of procreation, so what's there to bemoan?

So as either a reward for his tolerance or a snub to my spring diet, I think I'm gonna go home tonight and bake us a chocolate cake. Maybe it's the sight of rich, dark soil that excited me enough to seek such carnal indulgence. If so, we'll just call this my little fertility celebration. :)

Catfish, cooter & deer: survivin' & thrivin', Arkansas-style

2009-03-09T10:00:00.006-05:00

The arrival of vernal equinox has caught me in an unusually industrious mood. I'm sure it's amusing to my mountain man dad to observe as his oldest daughter turns into a can-stocking, deer-eatin', tomato-plantin', secondhand clothes horse. Truthfully, I fear very little in reguard to all the doomsday depression talk pumped into the American consciousness via satallite 24 hours a day. My husband and I rent a house, own two paid-for cars, and are currently a two-income household with health insurance, life insurance, and a little stashed back. At this point in time, I'm glad that we have little else to fret over. God has blessed us so much by not blessing us with too much. Although we're headless-chicken busy much of the time, we still have the opportunity to enjoy what we've been given. I couldn't imagine what our life -- or our relationship -- would be like if we were up to our nose holes in loan or credit card payments.

I feel doubly blessed to have had parents who taught me that "if you can't afford to buy it now, you probably don't need it". E-mailing with my dad back and forth last week, he shared another one with me that he seemed surprised that I already knew (I think I picked it up from a Countryside & Small Stock Journal magazine he had loaned me): "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without."

Now don't misunderstand me -- I'm hardly Granny Clampett, out shootin', weavin' & wildcraftin' , but I would like to learn to run my household even more resourcefully than I do. I'm looking for more than simple Better Homes & Gardens solutions. I'd like to see my energy bill cut in half. I'd like to spend half of what I do in groceries (which averages about $100 every two weeks) and still be able to provide extra helpings at the table when company's over in the evening. I'd like not to look like a ragamuffin because I can't fit into last year's clothes, yet can't scrape up enough to buy new ones (I'm probably a little too proud of myself for being clever enough to consign last year's size 4's and 6's in order to earn enough for this year's size 8's. The size switch should keep me humble enough. Sigh.) I've even taken on a piano student -- her fees help pay for those little extra things around the house you don't know you need until they suddenly break or wear out.

I'm curious -- what are my fellow statesiders doing to tighten their belts, if at all?

Pull, Tug, Tug, Pull

2009-02-24T12:42:00.014-06:00

Green beans, whole. Onion powder, a dash too much. Salt. Pepper. A can of mushroom pieces and parts. Eat three quarters. Chill. Nuke, eat again.
The sum of these things is my RDA dose of daily pleasure -- just one sunny spot of it. Not that my life behind the glass is a terrible, unbearable ordeal. It's just... nothing. And that is worse.
So, the state of my life is thus: the apex of my human experience is reheated green bean casserole.
I'm hungry, but not that hungry. I call other way-too-busy church wife who just returned from Louisiana. How's about that king cake you offered Sunday?
Gradually, I see myself deciding to take action. Grab those bull horns and give 'em a good yank. (On a tangent, I'm amusing myself by recalling a part from the movie "City Slickers" when Billy Crystal says he has "pulled and tugged, tugged and pulled" for milk, only to discover that the sex of the beast he's violating is terribly, horribly misunderstood....heh heh.)
Victoria's Secret catalogues arrive every three or four days now. I eagerly rip them open (in an assuredly heterosexual manner, mom!), searching the contents for guidance like a twelve-year-old with her first Seventeen. A push, if you will, in a more empowering direction. Inside those pages, long stalks of lean muscle mass beckon my back to the floor, where I will tug and pull and pull and tug my abdomenal muscles into a tighter, more pleasing shape (sorry, I just can't leave that one alone!). Somehow, if I've done only crunches, I tell myself that my requirement of daily excercise is somehow fulfilled. Now it's fiber, coffee, water, fiber, repeat.
I've begun begging reading material from friends. New knowledge, new stories, new ways to use my mind as my eyes and reinterpret my wilted point of view. My bathroom cabinet is stuffed with water damaged books. My web browser overflows with bookmarked blogs. I read Scarlett, The Lovely Bones, a youth translation Bible taken from the youth room, Star featuring Brangelina & babies, Hogscald Holler, The Hermitage, How to Eat, and online commentaries on The Secret Life of Bees -- I saw the film last week and fell in love with the sisters, the house, the whole premise. It made me want to flesh out my own flower-colored, nurturing, pancakes-and-syrup-every-breakfast, nearly-noumenal fantasy safety world.
The intoxicating sense of excersizing complete and ultimate control over the worlds I will create on paper fills my heart like smoke, curling into its abandoned, unswept corners, awakening them and calling them into labour. Ambitions begin to take shape.

I will have fresh air and pajamas and long, soft, artistic hair. I will take two baths per day and consult with my pugs for their professional opinions.

So forget music for awhile.

I'm going to be a writer.

Good Knees

2009-02-19T10:22:00.006-06:00

Smile. It just might kill you.

This is what I'm thinking to myself as I gnash my teeth, trying to keep a public service smile smeared across my Lancome mouth. My last customer, a guy outfitted in Mossy Oak attire from toes to teeth, reaches into my window and grabs his food as if he were doing a transaction performed by an uncooperative machine.

Twitch, twich. Caffiene levels rising. Refill the Dr. Pepper. How was southern cross-and-bear-it woman her normal honeybee self before the creation of our favorite beverage?

I slide my aching hands into the cool wash of fresh air in the window. Today feels like the first slap of spring wind on my tight knuckles. Today, I am the freshman co-ed in three quarter length sleeves. Long hair. Vice president, first chair, able. Good knees. Unembarrassed of my physique. Eight years. It's been eight years. And I wonder why I'm angry.

Happiness Is a Warm Pen

2009-02-19T08:49:00.008-06:00

I like writing so much better than speaking.

Writing is like composing a delicious secret to which you have the ultimate publishing rights. When you finally choose to release it, it's all there, on paper, in its complete and purposed form. Nothing that you haven't chosen to reveal. No slip of skin, like a tabloid photograph. No betraying facial expression. No concealing tone. You open your hands and release it in your own perfect timing. It refuses to lie, even if it is in itself a mistruth.

I wonder how many heroes' histories have been forged by the scribes, the poets, the bards.... I had the good sense long ago to learn the pen rather than the sword. I mean, knock yourself out slaughtering all the dragons you want, but at the end of the day, if your secretary hasn't been there to take dictation, your fantastic feats are naught but worm chow, perhaps good for credit on the purchase of your next mighty steed.

Maybe that's why I've kept diary since second grade. Even at the age of seven, I realized it as the golden gun of passive aggression. Like a boy, but too self-conscious to pin him to the playground fence and smear him with cherry lip gloss? Journal your every shared interaction obsessively. Shaken by your teacher, and afraid no one will believe you? Write a clever, thinly-veiled poem about her hairy moles and cash in some smart kid points to get it published in the school newsletter.

Ahhh, precious control. You are the dime bag that makes my out of tune pawn shop Fender sound like Eddie Van Halen's solo in "Beat It".

"You Are the Burden of My Generation..."

2009-02-11T13:49:00.005-06:00

To whom do I belong? Do I have a heritage? A mother or a father land?

As I slowly progress in age (and I said SLOWLY, dang ya!), a longing grows inside of me to know who I am in reguard to what - or, specifically, whom -- I'm made of.

In a modern world that places so much emphasis on racial tolerance, I'm surprised that so many middle Americans like me have chapters of unwritten family history and identity. (Aside: perhaps this is why our preferences are so dictated by the whims of celebrity, fashion & trend?)
I continuously wonder that if I knew what kind of temperments and tendencies my acestors had, if I would better be able to understand myself. Don't get me wrong -- I understand that each individual is unique and special snowflake... and good Lord knows me folks shouldn't be blamed for a number of my less than endearing quirks!
Maybe it's merely a romantic notion of mine, that it would be so fortifying to belong to a tribe, a people, a centuries-old tradition of love and struggle and music and art and faith in things unseen.....

"Homeless,
Homeless,
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake...."

My mother claims that I am blood-related to both Confederate President Jefferson Davis and current American president Barack Obama. No wonder I'm going through an identity crisis.

"...but I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland...."

2009-02-10T15:33:00.002-06:00

Everybody understands you better when you're dead.

touchdown

2009-02-06T15:39:00.002-06:00

You ever just have one of those days when you want to punt every squirrel along your wooden path?

There he goes.... through the hedges...little fur torpedo!....over the treeline...two points!

Lilah-brand Love

2009-02-05T17:53:00.006-06:00

Delilah, "kissing" her daddy on the thumb

As the sun teases me by wagging its tail over the horizon, I trek two frosty miles home in search of a little pug affection... (here's to hoping there are no gifts to be offered up to the paper towel gods left in her and Amos's crate...)

2009-01-26T09:32:00.024-06:00

"I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going?
And this he told me
Im going on down to yasgurs farm
Im going to join in a rock n roll band
Im going to camp out on the land
Im going to try an get my soul free..."

Had a batch of oddly hippie-flavored dreams last night...For some reason, I think that's a sign that I need to start cooking homemade bread and laying plans for spring's herbal pot gardening (pot as in containers -- not the wacky tobaccy). Or maybe the Time Life Flower Power CD collection infomercials that I stay up for with increasing frequency have penetrated my consciousness and are now eating their way out of my brain like an R. Crumb character with a violently wide mouth....

"...Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
I dont know who l am
But you know life is for learning..."

Every morning is a new mystery to solve. This morning has been no different (other than the disadvantage of waking up too late to imbible my routine cup of Folger's).
For the past few years, I've periodically scoured the 'net for any random news pertaining to a certain residence I visited on the outskirts of Woodstock, New York, back in 2003. I don't know why the memory of that day has wound such an air of dazzling interest about itself. I dream about the house constantly. Last night, I had one of those dreams.

Back during the time of my visit, my (now ex-)husband and I were tooling around with a creative pirate who, for privacy's sake, I'll call Fff. Fff did a little bit of everything. Wait, scratch that understatement. He did a whole lot of everything. I mean, the fella was busier than a hygenically-challenged 14-year-old boy in a pimple-poppin' contest. I was completely enamoured of him. He was everything I wanted to be when I grew up: freewheelin', uber-able, with a roster of incredible lifetime experiences that read like a rock star's list of conquests (back when rock stars were puckish demigods).

On that particular day, Fff and I departed New Jersey, plotting our course north to Woodstock, New York. Ever since I was a counterculture-minded teen, I hoped and prayed that one day that I would make my way up to two places: Bleecker Street, NYC, and Woodstock. Since I had quickly quenched my bohemian longing to play the same West Village stages as Dylan & Mitchell as soon as I disembarked from my big yellow taxi, my first chance at visiting Woodstock was the last dream I had to cross off my list. When I caught wind of Fff's intention to survey an estate which had been bequeathed to his client, a well-known author of children's fantasy (listen to me! authors! estates! I sound so Jane Austen!), I begged to hitch a ride in his big white van and accompany him. The man was not fond of telling his little poppet NO, so off we went.

The town we arrived in was not the glorified be-in of my youthful imagination! It was instead just like every career tourist town in the U.S. -- hokey gifts, overpriced candles, steakhouses with special regional names for the dipping sauce. Meh.

We continued through town and down the highway, where we turned off at a large house situated just off the road, surrounded by a tangle of trees. From the outside looking in, the place was everything I would ever want a home to be -- full of oddly-situated rooms stacked three high, with ancient windows that rattle when the wind feels mischevious.

Inside, there were books in every place a book could possibly be. There was also clothes, soiled linens, and the leavings of what must've been the previous three weeks' dinner scattered about the house like dog droppings. Fascinating, but yick.
(As we picked through the leavings, Fff explained that the caretakers of the recently deceased had practically set up camp in the poor victim house and had used it as their own personal rubbish bin. In a way, I suppose I did gain a wee peek into the Woodstock festival on my trip, because the shape the house was in perfectly mirrored pictures I've seen of the monumental trash heap that remained after the Love Generation loved 'em and left 'em.)

Fighting our way upstairs against the tidal wave of clothes and random refuse littering the staircase, we came upon a diamond mine: the attic. Behind a scarred wooden door, we discovered stacks of yellowed music scores, scraps and scribbles of handwritten stories, and a treasure trove of books older than my grandparents' relationship. Absently, allowed my hand to flit over stacks of dusty hardbacks and pick up a random volume. It was a copy of The Hobbit. Hey, it was something I was familiar with! What's the chances, right? I slowly fingered through its delicate pages to the publishing information, where I received the shock of my life. It was a FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING copy. Holy schmoses! I revealed my discovery to my companion, who rejoyced in its finding as well.

I heard later after our grand adventure that the book I randomly discovered was sold for a prince's ransom and helped to pay for the cleanup and presentation of the home, which I believe was eventually sold.
After years of wondering whatever happened to all the random pennings, I recently read on another blogger's site that the papers were of scholarly interest and are currently being sorted through and shipped out to a university in Boston, where men with unkempt facial hair and musty clothing will sort through them and exclaim "aha!" to themselves while tapping thoughtfully upon their pipes....

"We are stardust,
Billion year old carbon..."

Every Cup's a Good Cup

2009-01-22T16:57:00.003-06:00

Halfway through reading this, I became acutely aware that certain phrases from this poem had been plucked from the whole and inserted into mountains of graduation cards, schoolroom posters and little thought-provoking bathroom books that have been random parts of the scenery of my life. I found this thanks to another new discovery unearthed by the day's digging for inspirational coal -- something to hold a spark and warm myself by.

Desiderata ~ OR "Things to be Desired"

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

2009-01-22T12:04:00.003-06:00

Today I decided that my lack of interest in anything other than my bellybutton was making me out to be a boring bird, indeed. To remedy that ill feeling, I decided to subscribe to a few blogs, do some research on my FAVORITE haunted/tasty/musical tourist town (Eureka Springs, Arkansas), and catch up with an old chum from high school.
I just can't let this winter be like those recently past....

For Cher

2009-01-21T09:39:00.009-06:00

A mother's heart is the April sun
Encouraging young life to grow
at the tempo of God's pleasure.

A father's strength
Is the mountain upon which
the fragile root and thrive.

The Master gathers the most perfect
lillies unto Himself,
for they in their purity
best reflect His glory.

Deposit and Withdrawl, Part 3

2009-01-15T10:24:00.016-06:00

"So, what you're saying is that this man, who might not have been a man at all, walked up to you at the teller window, and the last thing you remember is seeing his face...although you don't seem to be able to recall any of his features?" her doctor inquired without trying to conceal his doubtfulness.
"Yes, sir," Jillian said, listening to the tone of her own voice with fascination. She wasn't sure she even believed herself.
Her family physician, Dr. Hindenberg, was a close friend of her father's and often took it upon himself to look after his family -- especially his only daughter. Over the years, he had watched her tranform from a quiet, brilliant young girl with an anarchic riot of reddish hair to a young lady harnessed by the refined manners and ways of a modestly moneyed southern town. Lately, though, he had noted the finest cracks in her manicured facade -- odd things that perhaps a stranger might not notice: her fingernails, normally smooth, squared and painted a shade of unicorns-and-kittens pink, were now startlingly short. If they wore any color at all, it was something ironic -- gold, black, blue. Bruise colors, he mused.
And there was something about the way she smelled. The odor that attatched itself to her clothes and her hair wasn't offputting, exactly.... the best comparison he could make was to the scent of a newly-printed book with gardenias pressed between the pages.
"There.... there was something else...at least I think it could be something else," she suddenly volunteered. The doctor raised a grayed eyebrow.
"Last night, I dreamed that I was walking alongside this beautiful, crystal-clear river. The moss on the riverbank was so soft, I didn't realize I was barefooted until I sat at the base of a huge tree and turned my toes up. Then this boy approached me. I say boy... I mean young man, maybe?" The doctor slowly nodded, absently chewing on the side of his overgrown mustache. "Anyway, the guy gets within three feet of me, reaches up, and pulls a piece of fruit I hadn't noticed off the tree above me..."
"What kind of fruit?"
"An orange. It smelled...." -- she greedily drew the scent of candied air into her lungs -- "like Christmas day."
"And then?" the physician whispered.
"And then... that's it. I woke up feeling like I hadn't felt since the days of Captain Crunch and Thundercats in the morning. Everything in my life, if only for a fleeting moment, felt....solved somehow."
Dr. Hindenburg slowly spun on his heel and turned away from Jillian, nervous that the smirk barely visible beneath his whiskers would give him away. Absently gazing into the warped reflection of his eyes thrown by dented metal of an old paper towel dispenser, he considered his words.
"Jill," he began, "exactly how many cups of coffee do you drink per day?"
"Ohhhh....about two pots' worth."
The doctor lifted an ungroomed eyebrow. "At what point during the day does your coffee consumption cease?"
To his surprise, the intention of his questioning drifted right by Jillian like a clear balloon. "Oh, I might warm up a pot before I settle into bed and watch a movie. It's just so relaxing to have something warm in my tummy before I drift off."
The good doctor picked up a dry pen sporting an advertisement for a drug claiming to treat restless leg syndrome. He tapped the butt of the useless thing on the countertop to an impatient beat. "You know, they recently did a study on coffee drinkers that suggests that those who ingest more than seven cups per day are increasingly prone to..." -- he looked into her face, searching for any sign of rejection before he finished -- "hallucinations. We'd also like to check you for epileptic brain activity."
To his mild surprise, his patient failed to flinch at the arrival of such worrisome news; even her feet, dangling off the edge of the examination table, never broke the rhythm of their playful sway.
"Okay, doc. You're the boss," she said, nonchalantly turning to rifle through her purse. "But tell me, if this episode can somehow be explained away as some caffiene-induced electrical storm up in this rotten melon head of mine, then tell me, what in the Hannah Montana is this?" she exclaimed, tossing a dusty leather-bound book onto the countertop between the two of them.
Dr. Hinderberg leaned in toward the aged tome, examining the oddly fragrant object as if it were bearing fangs and poised to strike. It was older than the oldest book he had ever seen. Why, even the binding was sewn with a thread of some unfamiliar material that looked as thin as a lily petal, yet held the yellowed pages with suprising commitment. He turned it over in his sterile professional hands, whispering to himself the only words imprinted on the cover.
"Occupo fructus. Occupo fructus," he muttered.
"Sounds latin," she said.
"It is."
"Where did you get this?"
"The man who came to the teller window gave it to me."
He offered no other words; the room fell into silence. Jillian faintly heard a child wailing down the hall.
After a few moments of unbearable silence, her tongue escaped her. "So, what does it say?"
"It says.... seize the fruit."

Deposit and Withdrawl, Part 2

2009-01-14T10:33:00.008-06:00

A whisp of snakelike smoke wound its way upward from the end of Jillian's half-lit cigarrette. Her eyes followed it involuntarily; for a brief moment, she was nearly convinced that she could hold onto the stream like a beanstalk and be gently carried into the stratosphere. She checked her trembling left hand for beans.
A door behind where she sat on the sidewalk opened, and the familiar sound of scuffling feet rounded where she sat and came to rest next to her. "I didn't know that you smoked," a hestitant voice above her murmured. Jillian took a startled look at the offending object for herself. "Well," she paused, searching. "I didn't, either," punctuating her suprise by grinding the remainder of the cigarette into an old gum stain on the pavement.
"I heard you had a seizure," said her friend Anneliese as she seated herself carefully beside her, careful not to disturb the gaps in her long button-up skirt.
Jillian considered her friend's comment carefully. Had she experienced a seizure? And if so, why didn't she recall anything so seeminlgy traumatic?
"I guess I am what I ate for lunch," she said, desperately trying to make sense of things by saying something nonsensical. "What's that?" Anneliese asked, willing to be diverted from investigating an event that obviously bothered her companion.
"Fried vegetables. With a side of what the crap."

Deposit and Withdrawl, part one

2009-01-12T13:03:00.018-06:00

Jillian first mistook the approaching figure for a gathering of startled wild birds whose games were often faintly concealed in the tall weeds hedging the back of the Quaker meeting house next door.

She always found herself physically disoriented when she realized the initial impression of her senses had failed her; and now, watching the approaching figure materialize from what her mind had first believed to be a stirring of frightened wrens was enough to disturb the normally lulling rhythm of her work behind bank teller window.

Like the roll of a breaking wave, the bird-shadow suddenly parted its cover of weeds and, to Jillian's fascination and slight astonishment, move with a manner of ethereal bearing over the rubbled pavement cracks of the parking lot. What on earth....her brain began, as her knees felt the sickened urge to sway.

Suddenly aware of the people around her, she began to realize that she was the sole witness to this event. Her mouth opened in an attempt to communicate; her jaw resisted as if it had never opened before. Her brain screamed in confused protest. The figure drifted closer.

And then she saw him. Her urge to panic was muffled by a paralyzing fascination. His skin was barely translucent and warm-toned, just as the flesh of any living creature, yet a rythmic pulse of pink and gold barely beneath its surface reminded her of wheat fields yielding to a gentle wind.

Until he removed his covering, she did not realize that she had not seen his face.

"....I Can Feel The Distance Getting Close..."

2008-12-30T12:39:00.006-06:00

Have you ever noticed that once an artist realizes they have reached their pinnacle of popularity, the focus of their work shifts from the singular audience to a global one?
Prime example: While my husband and I watched Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" music video collection I gifted him for Christmas, I couldn't help but notice that his attempts to do more than connect with people on a a one-on-one basis made much of what he sang about seem like contrived conviction. I've got kind of a similar taste in my mouth left from Tori Amos's last two projects and Sting's Sacred Love album. There are passionate moments embedded within each work, but this emerging pattern has left me wondering: what causes an artist to lose the intimate tone of his or her original breakthrough work?

Rasputina

2008-12-11T09:43:00.011-06:00

I had nothing
So I used what I had
And you knew
It wasn't much more than that
You took your turn and then
You took a turn again
Tell me when
It's time for me to speak for myself

The truth as it
Occurred in perfect three quarter time
could not
accomplish the damage
So you spit
And set
Your sights upon a higher mark
And I
am finished
Before I even start

I think it's time
That somebody told you
You fight just like a girl
You fight just like a girl
And it's a shame
that nobody knows you
like I do
but they will

What Is It Worth?

2008-11-05T13:20:00.014-06:00

In the spirit of the recent election, let's talk about freedom of expression. Specifically, the artistic variety. I'm not one to debate something I know squat-diddly about.

Growing up within many artists' circles, I've seen a tragic number of my peers swing wide on this precarious lane, drunken with perceived expressive freedom, and plunge off the creative mountain they believe to be climbing into a void filled with unstable relationships, casual substance abuse & constant emotional conflict.

Speaking from experience, when you find yourself habitually using inner turmoil as a source of inspiration, it becomes the axle upon which your life turns. It's like an internal parasite -- you consume more and more raw material with the intention of supporting life, yet you grow increasingly undernourished.

In my heart, I have adopted the belief that the talent and drive to express ones' self artisically is a gift best tempered with a dual sense of social responsibility and the consideration for the psychological health of the artist and her audience. Let's face it: words, sounds and images are a powerful cocktail of influence, especially upon young minds who are striving to define themselves.

"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." (Proverbs 23:7) How I wish someone would've scrawled these words upon my beloved Nirvana poster hanging on my wall when I was a young teen, directing me toward empathy and away from that back-of-the-bus, liquor-in-my-locker brand of apathy so popular amongst my peers and I. To this day, I encounter former classmates who are still paying for the ideas they bought into at a tender age. I occasionally still find myself struggling against these demigods I sought and served in my youth.

What if Kurdt Cobain hadn't uttered those quotes I painstakingly copied into my junior high journal? What if Jack Kerouac, with his pot and bennies and casual physical relationships, hadn't made it look like his rootless lifestyle was the most beautiful thing on four wheels? What if Tori Amos hadn't painted the Christians in her world to look like drooling, misogynist carnivores? How different would my young life have been if I hadn't known any of these artists' works? Would I be a lesser person, or would I be a less conflicted person?

Maybe that little Sunday school song that goes, "Oh, be careful little eyes what you see...." should've included another verse:

"Oh be careful little mind, what you conceive...."

In honor of the election...

2008-11-04T14:36:00.004-06:00

...I'm sharing a beloved clip from Berke Breathed's discontinued Bloom County comic strip because it reminds me so, so much of the vocal exchange during election time.

an unusual publishing deal

2008-10-23T09:39:00.009-05:00

As a child in church, I often absorbed and toyed with bible-referencing watchwords many Christians make use of (only now do I recognize their value in helping us galvanize a common understanding of our shared faith).... Inevitably, as most children do, I heard or imagined many things differently than they were meant to be communicated (ex: one of our ladies who enjoyed bringing special music to the congregation often sang "People Need the Lord", the title line of which I innocently misinterpreted to be, "people need amor" -- and I thought she meant Amor brand tinned cat chow! To this day, you can occasionally catch me crooning "peeeeople neeeed cat foooood" around the house when I'm feeling frisky.)

In my innocent mind, the idea of what our pastor called "the Lamb's Book of Life" (ex: the ledger where your name is recorded in heaven when you are saved) played huge havoc in my mind for some reason.... What if the writer misspells my name? I thought. Or worse, what if he smudges or erases it?!

Being my proactive little self, I decided to write my own book in my head (which, for some psycho reason, I believed God would be able to open like a ripe melon and look inside where I myself had recorded my first profession of faith in Christ), which I envisioned as a leather-bound, handstitched tome containing each important memory of my life I would want to share with him, starting at the moment I was saved when I was six.

I know that some people would point to this instance as proof that a child of so few years is capable of comprehending the essence of faith -- believing blindly in the unseen. I hold a different, perhaps more optimistic view: God invites us to try Him, to let Him prove to us that He loves us beyond all comprehension and that we can trust Him in ALL things.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel!

2008-10-21T10:54:00.003-05:00

"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", a 12th century hymn claiming the promises of the old testament prophecies concerning the birth of the savior, has captivated me for the longest time.... its solemn, simple medieval melody thrills me with its borderline-ominous tone. The impassioned lyric, though, calls out to me for a more explosive, joyous treatment than its traditional setting provides....

...I wonder how a Baptist congregation would react to singing in a smidgen of Latin. *mischievious grin* not that i would dare to limit the pre-conceived arrangement to any particular denomination...

2008-10-10T10:15:00.005-05:00

Looking out my teller window at work today, I remember jobs I've had where I would've devoured glass-locked light like it was a Godiva milkshake. Funny how the lack of things commonly taken for granted -- light and fresh air -- can make all the difference in the world to someone previously deprived...and by choices of her own!

Even though I was initially enthralled to have gained the two jobs I had prior to my current employment, their corporate environments soon ran ALL over me, pulverizing my lust for life until my heart felt like a cup of tepid water with a couple dozen half-dead sea monkeys weakly struggling to swim around inside (sorry... that was the only way I could envision it for some reason).

But OH! -- from the place I'm at now, I not only get a little UV exposure to feed my freckles on, I also get to watch the leaves pass through their final dazzling cycles and drift across the gravel lot of the garage next door. I'm aware of how silly it likely sounds to count such mundane sights as pleasures, but those who have worked under the scrutiny of cool blue cosmetic lighting and the scrutiny of socially carniverous women know what I mean....

These Are a Few of My Favorite Thiiiiings (Fall Edition)

2008-10-09T10:45:00.003-05:00

v- neck sweaters (par!)
Sting's Mercury Falling album
Countryside Magazine
broiled parsnips
When Harry Met Sally
Cinnamon-y candles
burberry men's fragrance
blackeyed susans & ferns
biscuits & coffee
6 am bible study
overalls
Twin Peaks (mostly season one)

My Heroes Aren't Cowboys Anymore

2008-10-09T09:14:00.005-05:00

This post begins like so many good stories....

Can I tell you a secret?

My heroes are fallen. My friends are those I've failed before to recognize, and their numbers are precious fewer than previously calculated.

This is all unexpectedly comforting -- because now I know where I stand. And I've got choices to make. Do I allow power and ambition and gossip and vanity cloud God's vision for who I should become, or do I choose to align myself with those (be they few) who constantly strive to match stride with our Master?

Commencement

2008-10-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Here I am again, in my favored state -- creative and anonymous.